Awesome Music / Punk

• Ramones: "Blitzkrieg Bop" from Ramones is a perfect 'storm the barricades' soundtrack. And is used as such in the "Battle of the Belt" during the pilot episode of Space: Above and Beyond by Lt. Cooper Hawkes FOR GREAT JUSTICE.

• The Clash:
  • They started out as a pretty good punk band, but their masterpiece was the 1979 album London Calling. Where many punk bands were people without a lot of musical talent, they instead incorporated elements of everything from rockabilly, to ska, to reggae. This in a genre dedicated to the pursuit of rock at its most basic.
  • "Sandinista!!" was their masterpiece, and it is finally being Vindicated by History. It actually has a tribute album.
  • Hell, the Clash are so good that even their rubbish albums have classic songs. See "This Is England".
• The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster's "Mister Mental" adds a certain awesome to any scene.
• Fugazi's general output is just superb. Even Repeater with its so-so lyrics rocks because the musicianship is so tight.
• The Offspring:
  • "You're Gonna Go Far, Kid". Manipulating people like puppets has never sounded so awesome. Badass drums, awesome guitar solo, someone who can control your every action without you even knowing. Or caring.
  • Yes, that album is awesome. "Half-Truism" should get some attention too.
  • "All I Want" is the perfect song for a high-speed chase or making some crazy money.

• A Wilhelm Scream: the critically-acclaimed 2007 album Career Suicide. Asides from being the peak of their tight, punk/metal hybrid sound and featuring the band's new, gnarly bassist, AWS dropped two songs from the tracklist because "they weren't fuckin' fast enough!!" some bass CMoA.
• The Damned:
  • "New Rose"; talk about making a first impression.
  • "Smash It Up", a punk anthem for anarchy rivaling the Sex Pistols' "Anarchy In The UK". Or hell, anything from an album with Captain Sensible on it's guaranteed to be Goth-Punk gold.

• Streetlight Manifesto. Take ska, expand the horns to two saxes, a trumpet, and a trombone and give it a more agressive feel.
  • On their album Somewhere in the Between, every song features an epic horn section.
  • Everything Goes Numb is an excellent ska album. "Point / Counterpoint" is musical brilliance.
• Short Stack have many wonderful songs, but "In This Place" is one of the best.
• "Resisting Tyrannical Government" by Propagandhi. Specifically the last 30 seconds or so of it.
• NOFX. "The Decline". This song can help those struggling in a major depressive episode.
• Bad Religion's "Faith Alone". While it does have a lot of similarities to other BR songs like "Sanity" and "Infected", the solo is one of the best Bad Religion solos ever.
• Rancid - Maxwell Murder's bass solo. When co-lead singer Lars calls Matt Reed "the greatest fucking bassist in the world," you believe him.
• From Dead Kennedys:
  • "Too Drunk To Fuck", "Soup Is Good Food", from Frankenchrist and "Police Truck" especially.
  • Sorry, I was off on a "Holiday in Cambodia".
  • "California Über Alles" über alles!
  • The entire album Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables is the best punk album ever recorded, maybe one of the best albums of the past 25 years. "MTV - Get Off the Air!!!"
• The Sex Pistols: Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols "God Save the Queen", "Anarchy in the UK", and "Holiday in the Sun".

• Titus Andronicus:
  • "A More Not perfect Union". You might think a seven minute punk song about New Jersey and Civil War iconography bookended by a rendering of an Abe Lincoln speech wouldn't be awesome, but you'd be wrong. From "All the armies of Europe and Asia could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River," to "I was never trying to change the world, I was just looking for a new New Jersey," to "Rally round the flag, boys, rally once again, singing the Battle Cry of Freedom!" everything about this song is pure undiluted awesomeness.
  • "The Battle Of Hampton Roads". It's the epic "fourteen minute long" album closer of The Monitor, and it is made of PURE AWESOME. The entire thing moves at a whiplash pace, the lead singer sings what seems to be a hundred words a minute, and the whole thing builds and builds with guitar solos and shouted vocals and a refrain of "please don't ever leave me," all to a FREAKIN' BAGPIPE SOLO. OH MY GOD.
• "The Vulture (Acts I&II)" by Gallows. Who knew that the same set of lyrics repeated several times could be so kick ass? The first couple times, it's all calm... then comes the huge epic crashes of distortion that last for almost too long... then the amazing punk song that takes the dark and grim lyrics of Act I and makes them ANGRY AS ALL HELL!

• The Scars, y'all. The Scars. Immensely talented Scottish punk/post-punk band that sadly dissolved into nothingness in 1982. "Fear of the Dark", "Adult ery", "All About You"... they recorded a whole song, "Horrorshow", with lyrics in Nadsat. HARD. FREAKIN'. CORE.
• Refused.
  • Listen to this: "New Noise".
  • At Coachella 2012, it only took two seconds of the opening drums for this track to let the audience know what they were in for.

• Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers' "London Boys", which was a Take That! to the The Sex Pistols for their song "New York", itself a Take That! to Johnny Thunders' former band New York Dolls.

• Dead Boys parent band Rocket From The Tombs, (and their songs "Ain't It Fun", "Sonic Reducer", "Down In Flames", etc.) who also spawned avant-garde band Pere Ubu. Their original version of "Ain't It Fun" kicks the Dead Boys' version to the curb. Other good tracks are "30 Seconds Over Tokyo", "So Cold", "I Sell Soul", "Amphetamine", and "Muckraker."
• "Search and Destroy" from Raw Power by The Stooges. Unfortunately, due to a convoluted mixing process, both official cuts of the song are either hollow and quiet or LOUD ENOUGH TO SHATTER GOD'S EARDRUMS. Luckily, there exist balanced remixes in which every glorious note can be heard.

• ALL of Relationship of Command by At The Drive-In. One minute it's serene and melodic, the next it's chaotic and noisy. But the raw emotion WILL give you goosebumps and make you want to sing/scream along with Cedric Bixler-Zavala. Best examples include One Armed Scissor, Arcarsenal, Invalid Litter Dept., and the two tracks featuring Iggy Pop, Enfilade and Rolodex Propaganda.
• German band Son Goku (named after THAT Son Goku) only lasted long enough for a single album, but their lack of familiarity is criminal. Case in point: Alle für Jeden.
• The Levellers are known for making utterly awesome and unique folk-punk music. For example:
  • "There's only one way of life, and that's your own, your own, your own..." And not just that - most if not all of Levelling The Land is brilliant. "The Riverflow", anyone? Or "Fifteen Years"?
  • Most of their anti-war songs, including, "Another Man's Cause" and "The Cholera Well", qualify. And then there's the full band version of "Barrel Of The Gun"...
• The King Blues' "What If Punk Never Happened?", a 6-minute opus where Jonny Fox is taken on a journey by Doc Brown to see what happens if the whole punk movement never happened. The whole thing has to be heard to be believed, but it will make you cry, then warm your heart, then make you do several fist pumps.
• "My Own Worst Enemy" by Lit really kicks ass.
• Ghost Rider and Frankie Teardrop by Suicide may not sound like it. But they were seminal in the creation of Synthpunk as we know it.

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